


and unto dust shalt thou --

by synecdochic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crossroads Deals & Demons, Gen, Imported, Jossed, Post-Episode: s02e22 All Hell Breaks Loose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-23
Updated: 2007-05-23
Packaged: 2018-05-30 08:10:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6415765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synecdochic/pseuds/synecdochic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Dean Winchester has been dying since the day he was born. Everyone has, really. He just knows it, is all. Most people wouldn't.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	and unto dust shalt thou --

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally [posted](https://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/125921.html) 2007-05-23.)
> 
> Gosh, I'd forgotten I'd ever written anything in Supernatural. Written in the S2->S3 hiatus.

Dean Winchester has been dying since the day he was born. Everyone has, really. He just knows it, is all. Most people wouldn't.

And it's not like he wants to die. He's always said that death, when it comes for him, is going to have to drag him kicking and screaming, and he's not above distracting it with a sweet smile or a honeyed lie long enough to let him kick it in the balls and run away. But the other side to that knowledge, the side that he never drags out until he's at a point where he needs it, is this: He understands death. He's faced it down a thousand times, in something (someone) else's eyes, watching for the instant when they know what he's going to be to them. And you can't bring death that many times without knowing you're never again going to be able to wash your hands clean.

There's one place he can't stand seeing it, though, and that's looking back at him out of Sam's face.

Dean's been dying since the day he was born, but Sam's been cheating death since he was six months old, and if Dean's got a choice, if Dean's got a chance, that's fucking well going to be how he's going to keep it. They'll get Sammy over his cold dead body, and they'll get Dean only after he's used up every single last one of his dirty tricks, and that's the way it's always been. Always should have been, at least. Dean's always known he'll probably die young -- what's that saying, old soldiers and bold soldiers but no such thing as an old, bold soldier -- but Sammy, well, Sammy's always been able to beat the odds. It's what he does. It's what they do, together; _got your back and you'd better have mine_ but there's never been any question when it all gets down to business. He'll call Sammy names that would make a nun cry and they both know it's his way of saying _love you, man_ and damn Dad for dumping this shit on him, anyway, because he can't do it. He can't.

Not and still be able to look himself in the mirror, anyway. And he's been having trouble doing that lately anyway.

Dean knows death, understands death, and has since as far back as he can remember. But he's not going to be Sam's. Not now, and not ever. But the problem is, the thing he can see in Sammy's eyes is, Sam refuses to be his, too.

They're all tied up in each other, always fucking have been, and he's always known (back in the part of his mind where he never lets himself go down to) that it's a relic of all this crazy shit. That if it hadn't been for this life, they wouldn't even much _like_ each other. He hadn't needed a djinn's dreams to know that much. But that possibility died along with Mom, the instant Dad put Sammy into Dean's arms and said _don't look back_ and Dean hadn't. Not then, not now. Sammy's _his_ , his burden, his responsibility, his curse and his blessing, and you know, sometimes in the middle of the night he wonders how the fuck Sammy managed to turn out so fucking normal, anyway, because he is. Sammy's the normal one, and Dean's the freak, and Dean's the one who remembers normal enough to make the comparison. 

Sammy grew up taking pieces from all of them, gathering little gifts from every person they found and every path they crossed. He got Dad's mule-ass stubborn, Dad's blinding need to know. And, well, from Dean he got a protective streak a mile wide and more stubborn than a demon who's moved into fresh hunting grounds. Dean knows it's his fault. Sammy grew up with nothing but the two of them and an endless parade of week-to-week guest stars in the cowboy movie that is their life, and, well, Sammy needs to protect what's his just as much as Dean does.

Kind of a bitch, really, when you think about it. Both of them trying so hard to die for the other one that Dean always knew: in the end, it's going to be a race to see who can sacrifice himself first.

Course, if Dean was smart enough -- fast enough, _good_ enough -- nobody would have needed to sacrifice himself after all. But Dean already knew he's not good enough; he didn't need to have his nose rubbed in it to drive the point home. He never has been good enough: not for Dad, not for Sammy, not for himself. Sammy's worth ten of him, easy. Always has been, always will be, like an artist's master work made ten times more worthwhile than the hand that painted it. 

He raised Sammy, after all, in all those minutes hours weeks when Dad couldn't be there. Maybe this is what parents feel like, watching their kids stretch their wings or some sappy Hallmark shit like that. Except most parents aren't worried about whether or not they're going to have to fucking _kill_ their kids to keep them from eating the world. And shit, there's just no way. No way at all, and it doesn't matter what Sammy said. They'll get Sammy over Dean's dead body, and it doesn't matter if the person Sammy's in danger from is Dean himself, because there isn't a damn thing in this world or the next that Dean wouldn't give to save him. 

When most people say "even if it kills me", they don't realize what it means. Dean knows. And if Sammy does snap and turn into some kind of world-eating monster, Dean's going to be the first person he eats, because Dean's going to use his last damn breath trying to figure out some other way to get Sammy back, and Dean knows that if there's even a little bit of Sammy left in whatever he might (what Dad said he would) turn into, that little bit will spend the rest of its life screaming. 

And it doesn't make a damn lick of difference, never has never will.

So it's the middle of the night and Dean's got his foot on the gas pedal and his eyes on the road, not looking back to the crossroads he never should have driven to in the first place, not looking sideways to the place where Sammy ought to be, keeping his eyes off the rear-view mirror, because the true story of what was always going to be is on his tail and gaining ground. There was never any question. 

He's been driving into the sunset since the day he took the wheel, and there's no such thing as third time lucky. Dean Winchester doesn't believe in luck. He's got a demon's kiss burning in the back of his throat, and a demon's lies whispered on the weight of his tongue, but he's got Sam back, he's got his Sammy, and that's what he came here for. No other way out. And he turns his face north, back to where his beginning and his end is waiting for him. 

Three hundred and sixty-five days. He's done more with less.


End file.
